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What we are looking at right now in this hemisphere really is the second-generation problem, or second-generation issues, of governmental and societal transformation. This is really, in the Western Hemisphere, about how you link democracy and development. It's about how you show that democracy is not a conservative form of government designed to protect the privileges of elites, but is actually a revolutionary form of government that is designed to break open societies. It is designed to create opportunities not only for political participation, but for economic and social participation, and that as we think about democracy we need to think about it in much larger terms than just voting or electoral mechanisms or machineries. We need to think about it in terms of a democratic state -- not just a democratic government, but a democratic state -- and all that means for political citizenship, for economic citizenship and for social citizenship.

---Thomas Shannon, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs

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